I’ve always been drawn to waters – lakes, rivers, oceans – and to the boats that swim them. My first chance to sail, at about age 10, came when my father took me to a tiny and pea-green pond in the city of Monterey, California. (Lake El Estero was next door to the somewhat sad Dennis The Menace Park.) With vitually no instructions, I was put into a beat up rental boat, the then ubiquitous El Toro sailing dinghy. With virtually no instructions about managing wind and water, I promptly capsized. As I emerged wet and stinky, my father, who disliked boats in general, assumed that would be the end of my nautical desires.
He was wrong. So some years later, he set me up with the commodore of the local yacht club, my father’s alcoholic attorney. During the one season we sailed Mercurys together, I learn a bit about sailing, a lot about getting stuck in kelp, and even more about cussing captains.
A couple of decades and several boats later (in 1995), my then wife and I decided it was time that our daughter learned to sail on her own. Mom suggested an El Toro, her first boat, but I still had associations with pea-soup. After a bit of persuasion, I came around; an El Toro would be easy to sail, light enough to carry on top of the car, and fairly inexpensive. Best of all, with money tight, I could apply my modest woodworking skills to building one in our small backyard.
In the summer of 1996, Cocklebull was launched, and our young sailor happily took to single-handing the less-trafficked waters on the Sacramento River delta, as we sipped beer and watched from the transom of the family sloop. She was hooked – and so was I. I’d forgotten the joys of sailing small skiffs. Eventually, her younger brother also took his turn in the little BullShip, though his preference soon turned to the sportier Laser.
I time in Cocklebull included three outings in the challenging and highly competitive cross-bay San Francisco BullShip race. My score: one capsize, one near miss with the Golden Gate Bridge at full ebb tide, and a final sail over the finish line.
In their teens, both kids graduated to summer sailing camp and bigger boats. By 2013, Cocklebull had suffered from too many days in the weather and required a significant rebuild – again in a small backyard, now in West Seattle. Cocklebull has stayed with me through nearly 30 years of changes. It now waits for our family’s next generation of young sailors
For those windless days, I spend my time on the water in kayaks. My first was a folding Klepper two seater, which I paddled mostly on San Francisco Bay. But the Klepper was a bit heavy to solo, so I sold it and bought another folding single, the excellent Feather Craft K1. Eventually, I could no longer bend into its small cockpit, so off it went to a new home. This year, I replaced it with the smaller Long Haul Ute, yet another folding boat that has its roots deep in Klepper history. Its ash/birch frame and fabric hull appeals to my wooden-boat history.